The Internet and World Wide Web (the “Web”) are expanding globally with millions of new users being added every month. This expansion has resulted in more and more business processes being deployed on Web servers. Web servers are Web-connected computers that receive requests from client Web browsers, run the required application processes, and send the response back to the client Web browser for the next action from the client.
A business process is a unique sequence of detailed business actions carried out at a specific time to achieve a specific business result. Each process has a distinct start and a distinct end point. A typical application has many processes that can be run independent of each other.
Conventionally, to develop customized software applications, a business user either had to be a computer programmer or hire a computer programmer to write code to implement the desired business logic. In the case of hiring a programmer, the business user typically has to wait for weeks or months in order to get the application built, tested, debugged and operational.
Likewise, to deploy applications on a Web server, program code is written and deployed on the Web server. Depending upon inputs from the client, this code executes a specific set of business logic, which is typically kept in a special program called a DLL (Dynamic Link Library) and generates HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) output to be sent to the client's Web browser.
A DLL is a set of routines that can be called from procedures and is loaded and linked into an application at run time. HTML is language used to create documents on the Web with hypertext links. HTML defines the structure and layout of a Web page by using a variety of tags and attributes. An HTML tag consists of a directive, possibly extended with one or more attributes, within angle brackets, for example <FONT SIZE=3>. There are many such tags that can be used to format and layout the information on a Web page. For instance, the tag <P> is used to make paragraphs and <I> . . . </I> is used to italicize fonts. Tags can also specify hypertext links, which automatically direct users to other Web pages with a single click of the mouse on the link.
On Microsoft operating systems, a Microsoft supplied component known as ASP (Active Server Pages) is required to get the request from the Web browser, run the appropriate application logic or DLL, construct an HTML output, and then send the output to the browser. ASP allows Web pages to be dynamically created by the Web server and uses scripting known as ActiveX, which provides a set of rules for how applications share information.
ActiveX uses COM (Component Object Model) components, which are binary files (such as .DLL, .ocx, or .exe files) that support the Microsoft COM standard for providing objects. Objects are generally entities that consist of both data and instructions for how to manipulate the data. COM components enable programmers to develop objects that can be accessed by any COM-compliant application. ActiveX and ActiveX controls are based on COM. ActiveX controls can be developed using a variety of programming languages such as C, C++, Java and Visual Basic. An ActiveX control, for example, can be automatically downloaded and run by a Web browser.
With ASP, one can combine HTML pages, script commands, and COM components to create interactive Web pages or Web-based applications. When a Web browser requests a Web page created by ASP (i.e., a Web page with a .ASP file extension), the Web server computer generates a page with HTML code and sends it back to the Web browser.
A convention use of ASP to deploy Web server applications is shown in FIG. 1, where a client browser computer 10 communicates via the Internet or Web 11 with Web server computer 12. Web server computer 12 includes the typical components found in a Web server computer, including for example, ROM and RAM memory, hard drive memory, a microprocessor, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Web server 12 computer is configured with ASP software, which includes an ASP router component 14, DLL components 16, an HTML builder component 18, and a final HTML output component 19. DLL component 16, in this example, consists of three discrete processes including a Customer DLL 16a, an Order DLL 16b and a Shipment DLL 16c. Associated with each of ASP router component 14, DLL component 16, and HTML builder component 18 is separate business logic, which typically is programmed for each such component by a computer programmer familiar with ASP (ASP scripting. Thus, the use of ASP requires that the business logic be spread over many different components of ASP (ASP router, DLL business Logic, HTML builder and HTML output components) and requires specific programming skills and knowledge.